UN chief condemns ‘utterly unacceptable’ killing of Palestinians as Gaza toll passes 25,100 - as it happened

It’s approaching 4.30am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv and we’re about to close this blog. Our live coverage will resume later today. Here’s an overview of the latest key developments. Thank you for reading.

• The prospect of a deal to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas appeared to recede on Sunday after an official in the militant group said Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of its conditions meant there was “no chance” of their return. The Israeli prime minister earlier dismissed Hamas’s conditions to end the war, which he said included leaving Hamas in power and Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza. A Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, said Netanyahu’s refusal to end the offensive in Gaza “means there is no chance for the return of the [Israeli] captives”, estimated to number 130. Netanyahu said that “I reject outright the terms of surrender” in Hamas’s demands.

• A total of 25,105 Palestinians have been killed and 62,681 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday. The head of the UN, António Guterres, later denounced Israel for the “heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable” killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, saying: “Israel’s military operations have spread mass destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as secretary general.”

• Two US Navy Seals who went missing during an operation to seize Iranian weapons bound for Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been declared dead after a 10-day search failed to locate them, the US military has said. The US central command had previously said that two Seals who were reported as lost at sea were involved in the 11 January operation in which the elite special operations personnel boarded a dhow off the coast of Somalia and seized missile components made in Iran.

• An Israeli strike killed a Hezbollah fighter on Sunday in south Lebanon, a source close to the group said. According to a Lebanese security official, the strike on a car in south Lebanon “killed a member of Hezbollah’s protection team”, while the senior commander he was protecting “escaped death”. The commander was in a vehicle with three other people behind the car that was hit, the official added.

• About 9,000 demonstrators marched through Brussels calling for an end of Israel’s offensive in Gaza on Sunday. The rally in the Belgian capital came a day before EU foreign ministers will meet their Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, Saudi and Jordanian counterparts in a string of meetings to discuss the war in Gaza and the plight of Palestinian civilians.

• A strike on Damascus targeting the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Syria spy chief and blamed on Israel killed 13 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said in an updated toll. The Guards confirmed it lost five members in Saturday’s strike.

• Family members of Hamas-held hostages along with protesters have pitched tents outside Benjamin Netanyahu’s private home in Jerusalem after staging a demonstration demanding the government strike an immediate deal for the captives’ release.

• The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) received 80 trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent via the Rafah border crossing with Israel over the weekend. The trucks carried food, water, relief items and medical supplies, the PRCS said, adding that no trucks entered through the Karm Abu Salem crossing.

• The US said it was taking an attack by Iran-backed militants on an Iraq base “extremely seriously”. On Saturday, the US military said “multiple ballistic missiles and rockets” were fired by Iran-backed militants at al-Asad airbase in western Iraq, while an official said US personnel suffered minor injuries.

• The UK’s defence secretary, Grant Shapps, described Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to a Palestinian state as “disappointing”, while Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, condemned the Israeli prime minister’s stance. Netanyahu’s spokesperson claimed that in a phone call on Friday with Joe Biden, the Israeli leader told the US president that his country’s security needs left no space for a sovereign Palestinian state.

• Hamas’s Qatar-based chief, Ismail Haniyeh, has held a meeting with the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, diplomatic sources told AFP, in the first official contact between the two since a phone call on 16 October. One of the sources said the main topics discussed were the establishment of a ceasefire “as quickly as possible” and the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

We have a full report on two US Navy Seals being declared dead after going missing during an operation to seize Iranian weapons bound for Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The US military’s declaration came after it said a 10-day search failed to locate them.

The US central command (Centcom) had previously said that two Seals who were reported as lost at sea were involved in the 11 January operation, in which the elite special operations personnel boarded a dhow off the coast of Somalia and seized missile components made in Iran.

Centcom on Sunday described the capture of the missile components as “the first seizure of lethal, Iranian-supplied advanced conventional weapons … to the Houthis since the beginning of Houthi attacks against merchant ships in November 2023”.

See the full report here:

About 9,000 demonstrators have marched through Brussels calling for an end of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, in a pro-Palestinian protest that ended in the European Union district.

The march in the Belgian capital on Sunday came a day before EU foreign ministers will meet their Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, Saudi and Jordanian counterparts in a string of meetings to discuss the war in Gaza and the plight of Palestinian civilians.

Participants in the peaceful “Justice for Palestine” demonstration, whose size was estimated by Brussels police, yelled out “stop genocide”, “Israel: terrorist” and “free Gaza”, Agence France-Presse reports.

Some also cried out “EU, shame on you” for perceived inaction by Brussels to protect Palestinian civilians while others urged a boycott on Israeli goods and businesses.

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One demonstrator, Victor Dumont, said:

We really need to unite against the genocide happening in Gaza and fight for an end to Israel’s occupation.

Another demonstrator, Bahija Dioure, said:

No people deserves that, whatever side they’re on - it’s not possible.

On Monday, the 27 EU ministers are to first meet with Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, before sitting down separately with the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki.

Here’s more on wounded Palestinians from Gaza being treated in a French field hospital aboard a ship off the coast of Egypt.

Sitting in a wheelchair, Abdulrahman Iyad wrings his hands in his lap, resting them gently near pins protruding from his thighs, Agence France-Presse reports.

He scrolls through his phone, looking at photos of his family, all killed in the blast that tore his own face apart.

“I was sent flying through the air and hit the wall of our neighbour’s house, my leg was trapped under the caved-in ceiling,” Iyad told the news agency on the French helicopter carrier Dixmude, which is being used as a hospital.

When I woke up in hospital, my uncles told me they had visited me, but I couldn’t remember a thing.

Iyad’s home, like much of the Palestinian territory where Israel has waged war against Hamas militants since 7 October, has been reduced to rubble.

The French warship began treating patients in November, off the coast of the port of El-Arish, 50km (30 miles) west of the Egyptian border with Gaza. About 1,000 people from Gaza have been treated aboard the ship, according to its captain, Capt Alexandre Blonce.

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In the hull of the vessel, a handful of patients and their families gathered around a table, listlessly playing a card game.

Among them was Nesma Abu Gayad, a bright-eyed Palestinian who was seriously injured when her home was shelled. “I was treated at a few hospitals in Gaza, before arriving in Egypt,” she said, the stump of her right foot floating above the ground from her wheelchair.

The next step will be a prosthetic, but I have to get a referral and travel to get it abroad.

A French doctor on the Dixmude, Salle, said she was shocked by the injuries that she had come across.

I’m in the military, so I deal with the war wounds of our French and allied servicemen. But what shocked me was to find them on civilians.

Family members of Hamas-held hostages along with protesters have pitched tents outside Benjamin Netanyahu’s private home in Jerusalem after staging a demonstration demanding the government strike an immediate deal for the release of hostages, the Times of Israel is reporting.

The protest comes as Netanyahu rejected conditions the militant group has proposed – including an end to the war – in exchange for the captives’ release.

The demonstrators will remain in their tents until “the prime minister agrees to a deal to return the hostages”, according to a spokesman for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

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Alongside the tents are signs and posters calling for the hostages’ release. One in the centre of the set-up reads:

We love our children more than we hate Hamas.

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The Times quotes Orrin Gantz, the mother of 28-year-old Eden Zacharia, who was kidnapped and killed in Hamas captivity, as speaking to the crowd and urging the prime minister and the war cabinet to “give up on ego”.

Gantz said:

My daughter didn’t just die, she died on our watch. Bibi Netanyahu, we trust you. There is no other person who can [return the hostages]. 107 days, they don’t have time. In captivity there is no tomorrow.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected conditions presented by Hamas to end the war and release hostages that would include Israel’s complete withdrawal and leaving Hamas in power in Gaza.

As Israeli planes resumed bombing Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters the Israeli leader’s refusal to end the military offensive in Gaza “means there is no chance for the return of the [Israeli] captives”.

Netanyahu said in a statement:

In exchange for the release of our hostages, Hamas demands the end of the war, the withdrawal of our forces from Gaza, the release of all the murderers and rapists. And leaving Hamas intact.

I reject outright the terms of surrender of the monsters of Hamas.

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Under a deal brokered in late November by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, more than 100 of the estimated 240 hostages taken captive to Gaza during an attack by Hamas militants on 7 October were freed in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Since then, Netanyahu has faced mounting pressure to secure the release the 136 hostages believed to remain in captivity.

The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum demanded in a statement that Netanyahu “clearly state that we will not abandon civilians, soldiers and others kidnapped in the October debacle”.

“We must advance the deal now,” Reuters quoted the forum saying.

If the prime minister decides to sacrifice the hostages, he should show leadership and honestly share his position with the Israeli public.

Two US navy Seals who went missing in the Gulf of Aden have not been located after an “exhaustive” 10-day search and their status has been changed to deceased, the US military says.

The Seals were reported missing while boarding an Iranian vessel carrying advanced conventional weapons, the US central command (Centcom) said on X on Sunday.

As we reported last week, US navy ships and aircraft had combed areas of the Gulf of Aden for the missing Seals as details emerged about their mission to board and take over a vessel carrying components for medium-range Iranian ballistic missiles headed for Somalia, a US defence official said at the time.

Officials had said the Seal mission was not related to Operation Prosperity Guardian, the ongoing US and international mission to provide protection to commercial vessels in the Red Sea, or the retaliatory strikes the US and the UK have conducted in Yemen.

The US official had said crew on the Iranian dhow, which did not have a country flag, were planning to transfer the missile parts – including warheads and engines – to another boat off the coast of Somalia.

Centcom said on Sunday that the search for the two seals had now concluded and “recovery operations” were being conducted.

Centcom’s post on X said:

During this expansive search operation, airborne and naval platforms from the U.S., Japan, and Spain continuously searched more than 21,000 square miles to locate our missing teammates. Search assistance was also provided by Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, the U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area Command, University of San Diego – Scripts Institute of Oceanography, and the Office of Naval Research – Oceanographic Support.

Out of respect for the families, no further information will be released at this time.

The post quoted Centcom’s commander, Gen Michael Erik Kurilla, as saying:

We mourn the loss of our two naval special warfare warriors, and we will forever honour their sacrifice and example. Our prayers are with the Seals’ families, friends, the US Navy and the entire special operations community during this time.

The Israeli and Palestinian foreign ministers are to meet their European Union counterparts on Monday as the EU considers potential steps toward a comprehensive peace between the two sides even as the war in Gaza rages on.

Israel’s Israel Katz and Palestine’s Riyad al-Maliki will take part separately in a regular meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels largely devoted to the Middle East but also taking stock of the war in Ukraine, Reuters reports.

Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and the secretary general of the League of Arab States will also attend.
Ahead of the meeting, the EU’s diplomatic service sent a discussion paper to its 27 member countries, suggesting a roadmap to peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At the heart of the plan is a call for a “preparatory peace conference” to be organised by the EU, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the League of Arab States, with the US and the UN also invited to be conveners of the gathering.

The conference would go ahead even if Israelis or Palestinians declined to take part. But both parties would be consulted at every step of the talks as delegates sought to draw up a peace plan, the document suggests.

The internal document, seen by multiple news organisations, makes clear one key goal of a peace plan should be the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, “living side by side with Israel in peace and security”.

EU officials acknowledge Israeli officials and diplomats currently display no interest in the so-called two-state solution but insist it is the only option for long-term peace.

• This is Adam Fulton picking up our live reporting. It’s 1.10am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv

Here is where the day stands:

• Speaking to CNN on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said: “We are in a very difficult and dangerous time in the region.” He added: “We are very worried … that’s why we are calling for de-escalation. We of course believe very much in the freedom of navigation and that’s something that needs to be protected but we also need to protect the security and stability of the region.”

• A strike on Damascus targeting the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Syria spy chief and blamed on Israel killed 13 people, a war monitor said Sunday in an updated toll, Agence France-Presse reports. “The death toll has risen to 13,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights of Saturday’s strike, revising earlier death tolls. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed that it lost five members in the strike which has been blamed on Israel.

• An Israeli strike killed a Hezbollah fighter on Sunday in south Lebanon, a source close to the group told Agence France-Presse. According to a Lebanese security official, the strike on car in south Lebanon “killed a member of Hezbollah’s protection team”, adding that the senior commander he was protecting “escaped death”. The security official added that the Hezbollah commander was in a vehicle with three other people behind the car that was hit.

• The US said that it is taking the attack by Iran-backed militants on an Iraq base over the weekend “extremely seriously”. On Saturday, the US military said that “multiple ballistic missiles and rockets” were fired by Iran-backed militants at al-Asad airbase in western Iraq. “It was a very serious attack, using a capability of ballistic missiles that posed a genuine threat,” White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said.

• Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has condemned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal of Palestinian state, saying: “Netanyahu’s dangerous views, denying Palestinian statehood, are not just ‘disappointing’ but must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. For those who want to see peace in the region, we must see meaningful progress on a two state solution.”

• The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) received 80 trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent via the Rafah border crossing over the weekend. The trucks carried food, water, relief items and medical supplies, the PRCS said, adding that no trucks entered through the Karm Abu Salem crossing.

• UN chief António Guterres condemned the refusal to accept a two-state solution for Palestinians and Israelis, writing on Twitter/X: “The refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable. The right of the Palestinian people to build their own state must be recognized by all.”

The Palestine Red Crescent Society’s (PRCS) psycho-social support team visited paramedics and staff at the occupational therapy unit at al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

Video posted online showed PRCS staff members playing music and singing in attempts to bring healthcare workers relief amid Israel’s attacks across the strip which have injured nearly 63,000 Palestinians since 7 October.

Speaking to CNN on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said: “We are in a very difficult and dangerous time in the region.”

He added:

We are very worried … that’s why we are calling for de-escalation. We of course believe very much in the freedom of navigation and that’s something that needs to be protected but we also need to protect the security and stability of the region so we are very focused on de-escalating the situation as much as possible.

Bin Farhan’s comments come as Yemen’s Houthis have scaled up their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea which have been met in response with US and UK airstrikes, as well as a rising death toll in Gaza where Israeli forces have killed 25,000 Palestinians since 7 October. Frequent cross-border fire exchanges between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters have also become a growing regional concern.